Why you shouldn't rob banks
by JoMiSm
Summary: You just might run into an Avenger or two. Clint and Natasha go to cash their paychecks. It unexpectedly involves guns and ski masks. One-shot. Enjoy. Love you.


_**hahaha I thought of this suddenly. It kind of struck my fancy. No, this is not based upon A Funny Thing That Happened On The Way To Thor's Hammer, though I realized that it kind of resembles it, looking back. **_

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The Avengers are crime fighters. The Avengers fight aliens from outer space. They are 'gods' and scientists and billionaires and and super soldiers and assassins. But, at the end of the day, the Avengers can be ordinary people. They put their spandex suits on one leg at a time. They pay taxes. (Yes, they actually pay taxes.) They go to McDonald's and they buy their groceries and they complain about gas prices.

And they get paychecks. Which means that they go to the bank.

It was, to be specific, SHIELD payday, and Natasha and Clint were at one of their banks. There were probably twenty-five or thirty customers inside, and five tellers at the counter at the moment. It wasn't a huge bank, but it was good-sized, and there were many people who wanted to get their money in the bank while on their lunch break. Natasha and Clint were somewhere in the middle of the longest line. It was very, very boring.

The quiet chatter and boring atmosphere were suddenly interrupted by four masked men walking in. Yes, they literally had ski masks on. There was half a moment when everyone thought _they're kidding, right? _but when they raised their guns, they realized that this was an actual robbery. There were screams from a few people as they were told "EVERYBODY ON THE GROUND, NOW!" They dropped to the floor.

Natasha and Clint dropped to the floor with the others, but they were not panicking like everyone else; they were assessing the situation. Clint scanned the area. There were many innocents in the way, so there would have to be no shots fired or someone could get injured or killed. Natasha had come to this conclusion half a second ago and was trying to figure out a way to get them to focus their attention on them and not shooting anyone else.

The guys were picking their way through the crowd, pointing guns at the customers jumpily. Once they were past them, but not to the tellers yet, Natasha stood. The guys didn't even realize that she'd stood. "Eh-_hem._" she said loudly. They jumped and four guns were pointed at her. Good.

"BACK ON THE GROUND!" one of them yelled.

Natasha raised her hands slowly, but her face was anything but scared. She looked cocky with her confident smirk. "This is your first robbery, isn't it?" There was no reply. She was right. "I just thought I'd tell you what you were doing wrong." she said innocently.

One of the guys sighed and shifted impatiently. "What?" he asked. It was more of a statement than a question. They were all very impatient; Natasha'd have to make her move soon.

"Well, for one, you didn't take a hostage-which would probably help you if the cops show up. Which they will." Now all of the pedestrians were looking up at her in shock or anger-what was that crazy woman doing?! Trying to get them killed?! "And you also chose a bad time. This is when they're the most busy. More witnesses. They saw you up close. They know your build, skin tone, even your eye color by now."

They shifted uncomfortably. Umm... they hadn't thought that far.

"And you forgot to confiscate weapons." She dangled a gun by the tips of her fingers. They all suddenly went from impatient stances to rigidly pointing their guns.

"DROP THE GUN, LADY!" one of them yelled at her.

"Jeez, it's like you're stuck on caps-lock." Natasha said with a wry smile. She held it out to them.

"I SAID DROP IT!"

"Drop a loaded gun beside a pregnant lady and an elderly man?" Natasha gestured to the two people nearest to her lying on the ground. "I think not. You can get it if you want it." They exchanged quick looks and one of them was nudged forward. He walked toward her, trying obviously to look intimidating with his gun pointed at her head. He reached her in a couple of steps, reaching to take her gun.

The instant his hand touched it, Natasha simultaneously yelled "Clint, now!" and yanked the gun away from the man, throwing him off balance. He was knocked out a moment later with a roundhouse kick to the head. As soon as Clint's name was yelled, he was up and his fist connected with one of the men's faces. He staggered and Clint hooked his leg behind the man's knees, yanking his legs out from under him. His head hit the ground first; he was knocked out. Two down.

All of this had happened in the space of three seconds. The other two got their guns up and they each got off probably two shots at the assassins before they were each taken on by one of them. Clint got the man's gun in approximately one second of fighting; a swift knee to the groin and then a couple punches to the face had that guy out like a light. These guys were not trained at all. Natasha took her man down a moment later by slamming his head against the counter with a very loud _THONK! _

All four down in under one minute.

The customers on the ground looked at them in awe. Who in the world could do that so effortlessly in under one minute?

"Alright, everyone," Natasha said, "You can get up now. I assume one of you hit the alarm, right?" she asked, turning to the tellers. One of them, a very young and very frightened blonde, nodded. "Good. The cops should show up in a few minutes."

And then Natasha and Clint were helping people up. Actually, everyone was helping everyone else off of the ground; it was a good feeling. Once everyone was up, they were all looking at Natasha and Clint for guidance. What do you do in these situations? And, also... "Who are you?" the elderly man said. He had a white mustache and wore brown-tinted sunglasses. He seemed familiar.

They could've announced their codenames with grandeur and gotten applause and newspaper articles and attention, but they never were glory hogs. "Natasha Romanoff." Natasha said.

"Clint Barton." Clint said with a nod.

Going back to the job at hand, Natasha and Clint dragged the men to the side of the room, setting them in the corner and standing guard over them. The guns seemed to scare the people a bit, and they were all curious as to why they did happen to have those guns on them, but no one questioned them. The cops showed up soon and they went on their way.

It was only later that they realized that they hadn't cashed their checks. And wouldn't you know it, the bank was closed by the time they got back.

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_**I was watching the winter Olympics on TV and I simply must say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE Tina Maze! Oh my GAWD, I don't even know why, she's just so sweet and I just can't even! :DDDDDD**_

_**Did you see Stan Lee in the story above? I bet you did. I made it obvious. **_

_**-JoMiSm**_


End file.
